


Hold on

by nightsisterkaris



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 19:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19116634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsisterkaris/pseuds/nightsisterkaris
Summary: It's Melinda's first night back at the lighthouse after Tahiti and she's handling as well as she can.Based on Chord Overstreet's 'Hold on'





	Hold on

     It's as soon as she walks in that the people start staring. Newer agents try not to whisper to loudly as they explain her appearance to younger recruits. She hears words she's tried ro delete from her mental vocabulary:  _Death, loved him, resurrected, sick, dying, he said, dead, former agent, Cavalry. . ._

    She walks past them all. She hears something about Daisy, Jemma, Piper, and Davis in space. She doesn't care.

    Hauling the duffle bag, Melinda opened her bunk and dropped the bag to the floor. Then she stands, staring into nothing, alone, so terribly alone in her head. The air around her seems to drop a few degrees every minute as the last warmth of Tahiti and weakening arms around her fades.

    She's numb.

    Everything is a daze. She remembers it all in flashes of slumped bodies and tears, of mumbled nothings and a hard tile floor, of soft sheets and sweet kisses. Melinda knows what she'll dream of tonight.  _He's got his peace now, but what about Her?_

    She just stands, facing nothing. No one before her, nothing she wants in the future is here, not on thing ties her down anymore, nothing chasing her, nothing behind her, no one looking at her;

    No one beside her.

    And she stands alone, so terribly alone. No one to beside Melinda May.

    Phil isn't here to catch her if she falls. Phil isn't here to give her what she needs when she cries. Phil isn't here to support her decisions. Phil isn't here to be her other half. Phil isn't here!

    And it breaks her heart.

    When she thought that there was nothing between them, nothing holding them back, Melinda had hoped for something more. Just maybe the universe would let her be selfish for once. But no, no, no, no. This universe took and took and took, beating Melinda down every time, as if throwing problem after problem in attempt to break her down, like a cat torturing and playing with it's food before finally eating it alive.

    She's frozen. Frozen where she stands facing nothing, knowing what she'll dream about, knowing that for once, Phillip J. Coulson isn't coming home.

    Melinda had grown used to knowing that he would always come home. . .  right?

    And who was at fault?

    Who was to blame?

    Melinda wanted to blame Ghost Rider. She wanted to blame Holden Radcliffe for starting that terrible process that would end with Phil having to destroy AIDA. She wanted to blame Fury for using drugs without Phil's consent, drugs that were unsafe and alien. The whole process had made her sick.

    When he had died, -the second time, that is- she hadn't moved. Just let the one tear slip and Melinda had stayed in his arms, because at that moment, that had been all she had known how to do. She hadn't known how she was supposed to separate herself from him. She hadn't known how to say goodbye. So Melinda hadn't, for a long time.

    Sure, they'd gotten much more time than expected. Oh what she'd give for another day, another hour, another minute with him!

   Why had she let him leave her behind? She wanted to ask him what was going on in his head when he traded his life for the chance to kill AIDA. Now she will never be able to.

   Phil Coulson is never coming home. And Melinda is now going to deal with that.

   Falling to her knees, Melinda leans forward. She wants him back. She wants to go strangle a flaming skull with her bare hands. She wants to forget this world. She wants to reboot the framework and rebuild Phil's consciousness just so that she can have a ghost of him. Melinda wants to build a time machine an save him. She wants to bring him home. She wants to do  _something_.

    His death is like a sand hole. The more she diggs or tries to climb out, the deeper and darker it gets. There's no light at the bottom. And yet she's still digging.

    She's going to have to live in a world where Phil Coulson is never going to come home to her.


End file.
